Embedded spreadsheet commands

ABSTRACT

A cell of a spreadsheet is automatically updated and a comment is determined to have a command associated with the update. In response to detecting the command, the command is processed.

BACKGROUND

Spreadsheets have become the life blood of many organizations.Spreadsheets are used to track inventory and resources, order goods andservices, hire or contract resources, plan business activity, forecastbusiness activity, determine business financials, and the like. However,some spreadsheet operations and some data integration can be overlycomplex and difficult to achieve with the interfaces that are availablewith spreadsheets.

For example, maintaining state associated with data of cells embeddedwithin a spreadsheet is not easily achieved because to do so requiresdeveloping complex and lengthy formulas for each cell where there is adesire to track state changes. Additionally, spreadsheets generallyprovide data in generic formats and rely on external services tointerpret and translate those generic formats in order to interface withthe spreadsheets and their data. As a result, newly added externalservices have to include separate translation features for eachdifferent type of spreadsheet data for which the services may desire tointegrate with.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram of a method for processing a command in a comment ofa spreadsheet, according to an example embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram of another method for processing a command in acomment of a spreadsheet, according to an example embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram of yet another method for processing a command in acomment of a spreadsheet, according to an example embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of a comment command spreadsheet processing system,according to an example embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram of a comment command spreadsheet processing system,according to an example embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 is a diagram of one method 100 to process a command embedded in acomment of a spreadsheet, according to an example embodiment. The method100 (hereinafter “spreadsheet interface service”) is implemented in amachine-accessible and readable medium and is optionally accessible overa network.

As will be described in greater detail herein, the spreadsheet interfaceservice permits features and content associated with a spreadsheet to beenhanced by processing commands which are embedded within comment fieldsof the spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet interface service is layered over a spreadsheet. Thatis, the spreadsheet service interfaces with an Application ProgrammingInterface (API) associated with a spreadsheet software application or aspreadsheet software system. The spreadsheet software application orsystem is used to create and modify specific spreadsheets (instances ofspreadsheets). One technique for doing this is to monitor specific APIcalls being made in a spreadsheet to detect when operations and changesare being made to cells of the spreadsheet. These events are thendetected and communicated to the spreadsheet interface service. Onetechnique for detecting events may include monitoring when metadataassociated with a spreadsheet data file changes, such as when afile-modified date is changed.

In an embodiment, the spreadsheet interface is the entity that actuallymakes changes to data in a spreadsheet data file. Therefore, thespreadsheet interface service is aware of when it is making a change andthus does not have to detect any specific events within the spreadsheetsoftware application or system, since the spreadsheet interface serviceis making the changes through existing API calls of the spreadsheetapplication or system.

The actual spreadsheet application or system may be any commerciallyavailable application or system (e.g., EXCEL, ABYKUS, etc.).Additionally, the spreadsheet application or system may be anycustom-developed or open source application or system. Moreover, thespreadsheet application or system may process within any operatingsystem environment (e.g., LINUX, UNIX, WINDOWS, etc.). The teachings andembodiments presented herein can be achieved without modifying oraugmenting any existing API associated with any specific spreadsheetapplication or system.

As used herein a “service” is a single application or a combination ofapplications that cooperate as a system. An external service is one thatis not natively integrated or interfaced to an API of a spreadsheetapplication or system. Thus, as used herein “external” indicates that aparticular service is not capable of directly interfacing with an API ofa spreadsheet. This does not mean that the external service is incapableof processing and/or consuming spreadsheet data. In fact, some externalservices may be capable of translating spreadsheet formatted data andproducing spreadsheet formatted data. However, an external service doesnot natively interface with an API of a spreadsheet application orsystem.

A “command” is a string constant or an expression using a variety ofstring constants, which is recognized as reserved syntax by thespreadsheet interface service. The command may be recognized via specialdelimiter characters (e.g., #, (@, $, &, *, /, etc.) or combinations ofspecial characters (e.g., ##, //, #$, etc.). The special delimitercharacters may surround commands or may precede commands. In anembodiment, delimiter characters are not used at all; rather, stringconstants are detected and used to recognize the commands (orexpressions). The commands are embedded within comment fields ofspreadsheet instances (herein after “spreadsheets”). The commands areparsed and recognized by the spreadsheet interface service and promptthe spreadsheet interface service to take some action. The spreadsheetinterface service may be configured to recognize and process anycustom-defined syntax and set of actions via the commands.

In an embodiment, some of the commands may actually be in the syntax andthe format of recognized formula operations or macro operations that aspreadsheet application or system is capable of processing. In thismanner, additional standard spreadsheet formulas or macros may beembedded within a comment of a spreadsheet and recognized by thespreadsheet interface service. The spreadsheet interface service thendetects these commands and submits them for processing to thespreadsheet application or system when it is appropriate to do so.

Commands may be added to spreadsheet applications and systems usingtheir existing API calls within a particular spreadsheet. For example,in EXCEL a string of text can be added to any particular cell in thefollowing manner. A cell is selected with a mouse click and then thepull-down menu for Insert is activated and the Comment option selectedwith another mouse click. At this point, a user may add any string oftext to the comment field for the selected cell. The contents of acell's comments are viewed when the mouse is placed over a cell that hasa comment. Of course, each particular spreadsheet application or systemmay have its own user-defined manner in which comments are added tocells and viewed from the cells. Thus, the exact technique for addingand viewing comment text for cells is dependent on the spreadsheetapplication or system that the spreadsheet interface service ismonitoring and layered upon.

An example command syntax may appear as “#=SUM (A1:A10) #;” where “=SUM(A1:A10)” is a formula operation recognized and processed by EXCEL byinstructing the EXCEL API to sum the contents of cells A1 through A10.In this example, the command is in a syntax which can be processed as aformula operation within the EXCEL spreadsheet software system. Thecommand may appear within a comment of one or several other cells, suchas cell D1 or cells D1 through D10. The command may be compound, whichmeans that it includes multiple commands strung together (commands maybe separated by a delimiter, such as a semicolon). The command may alsobe in custom recognized syntax, which is understood by the spreadsheetinterface service and processed exclusively by the spreadsheet interfaceservice.

Initially, the spreadsheet interface service is configured tocommunicate with a desired spreadsheet application or system's API.Moreover, the spreadsheet interface service is configured to recognizeand perform predefined actions based on a predefined grammar or languageassociated with the desired commands and their syntaxes and semantics.

In an embodiment, the grammar may be defined within an extensible markuplanguage (XML) and represented as an extensible style sheet definition(XSD). In this manner, the spreadsheet interface service mayautomatically and dynamically configure itself to process new andpreviously unknown grammars associated with previously unknown commandsby parsing an XSD.

Referring now to FIG. 1 and the processing of a configured spreadsheetinterface service, at 110, the spreadsheet interface serviceautomatically and dynamically updates a particular cell of aspreadsheet.

In an embodiment, at 111, the spreadsheet interface service decides toupdate the cell based on interactions associated with interfacing to aRadio Frequency (RF) tracking service. The RF tracking service maymonitor the physical movements of products for a particularorganization. For example, RF tags may be placed on products of anorganization and RF receivers may be placed at various locationsthroughout stores, warehouses, distribution centers, transportationvehicles, etc.

When a particular product is moved from its current existing location,the RF receivers detect this movement and communicate the same to thespreadsheet interface service. Thus, if the product is a toothbrush,then when the toothbrush is removed from a shelf location of a store theRF tracking service detects this and communicates the same to thespreadsheet interface service. In response to this movement of thetoothbrush, the spreadsheet interface service decrements a total countwithin a cell of a spreadsheet for toothbrushes for a particular shelflocation within a particular store. By decrementing the total count, thespreadsheet interface service has automatically updated a cell of thespreadsheet.

It should be noted, that in the toothbrush example, the RF trackingservice may be configured in a variety of manners, such thattoothbrushes (products) are sampled at predefined intervals for theirpresent locations. Thus, movements of products may have to exceed somepredefined threshold of deviation from their original locations. In thismanner, temporary or insignificant movements of the toothbrushes are notused to continuously and unnecessarily interrupt the RF tracking serviceand its interaction with the spreadsheet interface service.

In other embodiments, at 112, the spreadsheet interface service may beconfigured to interact with any external service. The external servicemay be adapted to communicate events or conditions that the spreadsheetinterface service determines should result in an update of a cell of aspreadsheet. Moreover, the external service may be adapted to receiveand process other instructions communicated by the spreadsheet interfaceservice.

In yet another embodiment, at 113, the spreadsheet interface service maybe adapted to automatically and dynamically update a state associatedwith a graph. The graph may be embedded in a different spreadsheet ormay be associated with any other graphical user interface (GUI) service.For example, suppose that the toothbrush in the previous example is alsobeing tracked through animation in a graph in order to dynamicallydepict its movements from shipping to customer purchase. When thespreadsheet interface service detects the toothbrush being removed fromthe shelf through interactions and communications with the RF trackingservice, the spreadsheet interface service may indicate this statechange to the service associated with the graph as a state change. Thegraph service may then elect to take this information and dynamicallycommunicate it within the graph, such as by making a node of the graphassociated with shelf location have a distinctly new color or new effect(flashing).

At 120, once a cell is updated, the spreadsheet interface serviceinspects a comment field (herein after “comment”) associated with theupdated cell to determine if a command is present in that comment. If,at 130, no command is detected within the comment, then the spreadsheetinterface service continues to monitor and to update other cells of thespreadsheet when appropriate. However, if, at 130, a command is detectedwithin the comment, then, at 140, the spreadsheet interface serviceprocesses the command. That is, the spreadsheet interface servicedetermines what action or actions are associated with the command andthe spreadsheet interface service performs those action(s). In somecases, the spreadsheet interface service may have to evaluateexpressions associated with the command before the appropriate action(s)can be resolved and processed. In other cases, the spreadsheet interfaceservice may process some portions of the command by submitting thecommands to the API of the spreadsheet application or system, such aswhen the commands are existing spreadsheet formulas or macros.

For example, suppose that with the toothbrush example that a cell withinthe spreadsheet has a command that instructs the spreadsheet interfaceservice to detect a state change when the total count for toothbrushesis decremented from the cell and to send alerts or notifications ifanother cell within the spreadsheet is not updated within somepredefined period of elapsed time. This may be useful because anorganization may expect that its revenue for toothbrushes located inanother cell of the spreadsheet is incremented shortly after its shelfinventor for toothbrushes is reduced. If toothbrush revenue is notincreased within some predefined elapsed period of time, then this mayindicate that a customer has moved the toothbrush to a differentlocation within the store and discarded it or that the customer hasstolen the toothbrush. When the toothbrush is located via a RF trackingservice interfaced to the spreadsheet interface service within adifferent shelf location, then the spreadsheet interface service maygenerate a notification for store employees to retrieve it and place itback in its proper shelf location. Moreover, the spreadsheet interfaceservice may generate periodic reports for employees to gather variousproducts that are in their incorrect locations and to return them totheir proper locations and if this is not done within some predefinedperiod of time, then reports may be issued to management of the store.

In an embodiment, at 141, the spreadsheet interface service may alsogenerate a variety of additional commands in response to processing acommand embedded in an updated cell of the spreadsheet. These commandsmay be translated into formats and operations recognized by one or moreexternal services, and, at 142, communicated to those externalservice(s) for subsequent processing. This feature permits thespreadsheet interface service to interact with external services thatmay desire notification or modification based on the processing of thecommand embedded in the comment of the updated cell.

In another embodiment, at 143, the spreadsheet interface service maydetect an error condition or notification condition in response toprocessing the command. An example of how this may occur was suppliedabove with the toothbrush being removed from a shelf but not resultingin a corresponding purchase. One technique for achieving this exampleand other situations is for the spreadsheet interface service to set atimer, at 144, in response to processing the embedded command within thecomment. If, at 145, an expected event is not detected (e.g., update ofanother cell within the spreadsheet, etc.) within a predefined elapsedperiod of time, then, at 146, the spreadsheet interface service mayprocess error handling or notification reporting.

Embodiments of the spreadsheet interface service demonstrate how customcommands may be embedded within a spreadsheet for purposes of achievingoperations and integration to enhance the usefulness of spreadsheetapplications and systems. State changes are more easily identified andaccounted for within cells of spreadsheets. Furthermore, the content ofthe spreadsheet more readily reflects real time and dynamic conditionsof that content.

FIG. 2 illustrates another method 200 for processing a command embeddedwithin a comment of a spreadsheet, according to an example embodiment.The method 200 is implemented within a machine-accessible and readablemedium and is optionally accessible over a network. The method 200provides a different perspective of processing associated with thespreadsheet interface service represented by method 100 of FIG. 1.

Initially, the processing of the method 200 is configured to interactwith an API of a spreadsheet application or system, to recognize andprocess commands embedded within comments of a spreadsheet, and tointeract with a variety of desired external services. Accordingly, at210, the method 200 is initiated and begins to interact with a firstservice.

In an embodiment, at 211, the first service is a graph service thatvisually depicts and perhaps animates states of a product. The statesmay be defined in any manner within the graph service, such as when thestates depict physical locations for the product. In an embodiment, theprocessing of the method 200 may communicate and/or receive from thegraph service state changes associated with the product. When the graphservice communicates the state changes, at 212, the processing of themethod 200 may decide that a cell of a spreadsheet should be updated.Again, state changes may occur for a variety of configurable reasons orevents; one such circumstance is presented as an example at 212 where aproduct moves its location within the graph service.

At 220, a determination is made to update a cell of the spreadsheet. Inone embodiment, that determination may be decided based on interactionswith a first external service (e.g., at 212). In alternativearrangements, the determination may be decided based on a user thatinteracts directly with the spreadsheet and updates the cell, where thatupdate is captured by the processing of the method 200. In still otherembodiments, the processing of the method 200 may decide based on itsown state, conditions, and/or events that it should update the cell.

When the cell is updated, the processing of the method 200 inspects thecell's comment to determine if a command is present that should beprocessed. At 230, a command is detected in the updated cell. Thisresults in the command being processed, at 240. In some cases, thecommand or portions of the command include existing spreadsheet formulaoperations and/or macro operations; in these cases, the formula or macrooperations may be submitted to the spreadsheet's API for processing.

In an embodiment, at 241, and in response to processing the command, themethod 200 may interact with a second external service. This may entail,at 242, translating the command or other commands into a plurality ofadditional commands and submitting those commands in formats recognizedand processed by the second service.

In yet another embodiment, at 243, and in response to processing thecommand, a timer may be set or an event that tracks elapsed time. Thetimer may be used to track when other events or conditions are met ornot met and to process, at 244, other commands or to take other actionsin response to the events or conditions.

FIG. 3 is a diagram of yet another method 300 for processing a commandembedded within a comment of a spreadsheet, according to an exampleembodiment. The method 300 is implemented within a machine-accessibleand readable medium. In an embodiment, the method 300 is implementedwithin removable media that is interfaced to, loaded within, andexecuted on a processing device. In another embodiment, the method 300resides within portions of memory and/or storage of a processing device.In still other arrangements, the method 300 is executed as a remoteservice over a network or may be optionally downloaded and installed andexecuted on a desired processing device over the network.

Again, portions of the method 300 are preconfigured to interface with adesired API of a spreadsheet application or system, preconfigured torecognize and process predefined commands, and preconfigured tointerface with one or more external services. The API of the spreadsheetapplication or system does not have to be modified or changed in anymanner for the processing of the method 300 to perform the beneficialtechniques described herein.

Once the instructions of the method 300 are loaded and processed eitherfrom a remote network location or on a desired processing device, theinstructions perform the processing depicted in FIG. 3. Accordingly, at310, the instructions determine at some point that a state for a cellhas changed within a spreadsheet. A state change indicates that somemodification, such as an update, has occurred to the content of the cellwithin the spreadsheet.

The actual change in state to the cell may have occurred as a result ofother processing associated with the instructions. In other words, theinstructions of the method 300 may have changed the state or updated thecell. In an embodiment, at 311, that state change may have been receivedfrom an external service or may have been decided upon based on othercommunications received from the external service. In a differentembodiment, the state change may have originated with a user thatmanually edits or revises the content of the cell within thespreadsheet.

In an embodiment, at 312, the instructions interact with a graphservice. The graph service communicates product movements or statetransitions that occur within a graph being managed by the graphservice. Again, the graph service may communicate product movements ormay receive product movements from the instructions. As one example, thegraph service may receive product movements from the instructions, whenthe instructions are also interfaced to an RF tracking service thatmonitors locations of products based on RF tags included on the productsand RF receivers located in various geographical locations. In otherarrangements, the graph service may directly interface to a RF trackingservice and may therefore communicate movements to the instructions. Theinstructions use these movements to indicate state changes or updates tocells within the spreadsheet are desired and the instructions mayperform the updates directly.

Once a state change or update is detected, the instructions, at 320,identify and parse a comment field of the cell within the spreadsheet.If a recognized command is not detected, then the instructions continueto monitor the cells of the spreadsheet waiting for the next statechange to one of the cells to be detected. Once a parsed comment fieldincludes a recognized command for a cell that has been updated or hadits state changed in some manner, the instructions acquire the command,at 330, for the comment field. At 340, the command is evaluated andprocessed.

In an embodiment, at 341, the instructions may, in response toprocessing the command, communicate additional commands to otherservices. In another embodiment, at 342, the instructions may, inresponse to processing the command, elect to set a timer. The timer maytrigger additional commands or actions to be processed by theinstructions if predefined events or conditions are met or not metwithin predefined elapsed periods of time.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of a comment command spreadsheet processing system400, according to an example embodiment. The comment command spreadsheetprocessing system 400 is implemented within a machine-accessible andreadable medium. Moreover, portions of the comment command spreadsheetprocessing system 400 implement the techniques presented above with themethods 100, 200, and 300. Furthermore, portions of the comment commandspreadsheet processing system 400 are implemented within comment fieldsof a desired spreadsheet, which is associated with a desired spreadsheetapplication or system.

The comment command spreadsheet processing system 400 includes a commentstring 401A and a spreadsheet interface 402. The comment string 401Aincludes an embedded command that is adapted to be recognized by thespreadsheet interface 402 and adapted to prompt the spreadsheetinterface 402 to take a variety of configurable actions. Moreover, thecomment string 401A is adapted to be represented as text data within acomment field of a spreadsheet 401B.

The spreadsheet interface 402 is adapted to interact with the APIassociated with the spreadsheet 401B. The spreadsheet interface 402 maybe configured to interact with any desired spreadsheet application orsystem's API associated with the spreadsheet 401B. In an embodiment, thespreadsheet interface 402 is adapted to perform the processing depictedin FIGS. 1-3 which are associated with the methods 100, 200, and 300.

In an embodiment, the spreadsheet interface 402 is also adapted tointeract, communicate, or interface with a variety of external services410. Two example external services 410 include a RF tracking service anda graph service that were described in detail above with the methods100, 200, and 300.

In some arrangements, the comment string 401A is adapted to beassociated with multiple cells of the spreadsheet 401B. For example, asingle comment string 401A may be associated within the spreadsheet fora whole column, partial column, whole row, partial row, and/or selectivecells. This may be achieved using existing API operations associatedwith the spreadsheet 401B being used with the comment commandspreadsheet processing system 400.

During operation of the comment command spreadsheet processing system400, a spreadsheet 401B is modified to include a variety of commentstrings 401A which have embedded commands. When a cell associated withthe comment string 401A is modified, the spreadsheet interface 402 isadapted to recognize, acquire, and process the command embedded withinthe comment string 401A.

In some arrangements, it is the spreadsheet interface 402 that actuallymodifies the cell or is instructed to modify the cell by an externalservice 410. In another embodiment, the cell is modified by a userinteracting with the spreadsheet 401B using the API of the spreadsheetapplication or system. In some cases, after processing the commandembedded in the comment string 401A, the spreadsheet interface 402 maybe prompted to take other actions on other cells of the spreadsheet401B, set timers, or transmit other instructions or commands to externalservices 410.

FIG. 5 is diagram of another comment command spreadsheet processingsystem 500. The comment command spreadsheet processing system 500 isimplemented in a machine-accessible and readable medium and isoptionally accessible over a network. The components of the commentcommand spreadsheet processing system 500 depicted in FIG. 5 arepresented for purposes of illustration only and are not intended tolimit the teachings presented herein.

Thus, some components may be condensed into composite entities, othercomponents may be exploded into multiple sub entities, some componentsmay be removed, and/or some additional components may be added. In anembodiment, the comment command spreadsheet processing system 500implements, among other things, the techniques presented above withrespect to the methods 100, 200, and 300. Moreover, in an embodiment,the comment command spreadsheet processing system 500 implements theprocessing of the spreadsheet interface 402 associated with the commentcommand spreadsheet processing system 400 of FIG. 4.

The comment command spreadsheet processing system 500 includes a commanddetector 501 and a command processor 502. In some arrangements, thecomment command spreadsheet processing system 500 also includes a cellupdater 503 and one or more external service communicators 504.

In an embodiment, the command detector 501 is a means for detecting acommand within a spreadsheet. The means for detecting the command may beimplemented as software service(s), application(s), function(s),instructions, and/or module(s) which are adapted to parse comment fieldsof cells associated with the spreadsheet and acquire any embeddedcommands. The means for detecting the command may be interfaced to anAPI of the spreadsheet application or system for purposes of accessingthe data contents of a cell's comment field. Furthermore, the means fordetecting the command may be interfaced to the cell updated 503 forpurposes of determining when it is appropriate to inspect a particularcell's comment field for any embedded command. Also, the means fordetecting the command may be interfaced to the command processor forpurposes of forwarding detected commands for processing.

In an embodiment, the command processor 502 is a means for processingthe command. The means for processing the command may be implemented assoftware service(s), application(s), function(s), instructions, and/ormodule(s) which are adapted to evaluate expressions, perform logic, andtake action for purposes of processing a command detected by the commanddetector 501. In addition to being adapted to interface with the commanddetector 501, the means for processing the command is adapted to beinterfaced to one or more external service communicators 504 forpurposes communication actions or instructions to the external servicecommunicators 504 in response to processing the command.

In an embodiment, the cell updater 503 is a means for automatically anddynamically updating a cell of a spreadsheet. The means for updating thecell may be implements as software service(s), application(s),function(s), instructions, and/or module(s) which are adapted to updateall or a portion of a cell's data content. The means for updating thecell may be adapted to interface within one or more external servicecommunicators 504 for purposes of deciding whether to update aparticular cell of the spreadsheet and for purposes of notifying thecommand detector 501 of any such update that the means for updating acell performed. The means for updating the cell may also be adapted tomonitor a session associated with a user that interacts with the API ofthe spreadsheet application or system for purposes of communicating acell update to the command detector 501.

In an embodiment, the external service communicator(s) 504 is a meansfor interfacing with one or more external service, which are external tothe spreadsheet. The means for interfacing with one or more externalservices may be implemented as software service(s), application(s),function(s), instructions, and/or module(s) which are adapted to useexisting API's of external services for purposes of receiving actionsand communication actions from the command processor 502 and/or the cellupdater 503. Thus, the means for interfacing with one or more externalservices is adapted to translate actions or instructions that may beunderstood by the external service's APIs and is adapted to translateactions or instructions received from those APIs into formats that canbe interpreted and processed as other actions b the cell updater 503and/or the command processor 502.

The comment command spreadsheet processing system 500 is adapted tointegrate external services into the maintenance and management of datacontent included within a spreadsheet. Moreover, the comment commandspreadsheet processing system 500 is adapted to perform a variety ofenhanced programming features within a spreadsheet based on embeddedcomment commands.

The above description is illustrative, and not restrictive. Many otherembodiments will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewingthe above description. The scope of embodiments should therefore bedetermined with reference to the appended claims, along with the fullscope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.

The Abstract is provided to comply with 37 C.F.R. §1.72(b) and willallow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature and gist of thetechnical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that itwill not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of theclaims.

In the foregoing description of the embodiments, various features aregrouped together in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamliningthe disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted asreflecting that the claimed embodiments have more features than areexpressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claimsreflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of asingle disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are herebyincorporated into the Description of the Embodiments, with each claimstanding on its own as a separate exemplary embodiment.

1. A method comprising: automatically updating a cell of a spreadsheet;detecting a command embedded in a comment of the cell; and processingthe command.
 2. The method of claim 1 further comprising, interfacingwith a radio frequency (RF) tracking service to receive information thatindicates the cell of the spreadsheet is to be automatically updated. 3.The method of claim 1 further comprising, interfacing with a servicethat is external to the spreadsheet in response to processing thecommand.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein automatically updatingfurther includes dynamically updating a state associated with a graph,and wherein the graph is external to the spreadsheet.
 5. The method ofclaim 1, wherein processing further includes detecting at least one ofan error condition and a notification condition in response toprocessing the command.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein processingfurther includes generating one or more additional commands in a formatrecognized by a service that is external to the spreadsheet andcommunicating the one or more additional commands to the service forsubsequent processing.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein processingfurther includes setting a timer in response to processing the command,and wherein if an expected event is not detected within a predefinedelapsed time then processing at least one of error handling ornotification reporting.
 8. A method comprising: interacting with a firstservice; determining to update a cell of a spreadsheet in response tointeracting with the first service; detecting a command embedded in acomment of the cell; and processing the command.
 9. The method of claim8 further comprising, interacting with a second service in response toprocessing the command.
 10. The method of claim 8 further comprising,setting a timer that drives other additional commands in response toprocessing the command.
 11. The method of claim 8, wherein interactingwith the first service further includes interacting with a graph servicethat visually depicts state transitions which model physical movementsof a product, wherein the graph service is the first service.
 12. Themethod of claim 11, wherein determining further includes deciding toupdate the cell when a location for the product moves within the graphservice.
 13. The method of claim 8, wherein detecting further includestranslating the command into a plurality of additional commands andissuing the additional commands to a second service.
 14. The method ofclaim 8, wherein detecting further includes determining the command isan existing formula or macro operation associated with a spreadsheetApplication Programming Interface (API) and processing the operation bypassing it to the spreadsheet API.
 15. A system, comprising: a commentstring embedded in a spreadsheet; and a spreadsheet interface, whereinthe comment string includes a command in a format that the spreadsheetinterface is adapted to recognize and to process.
 16. The system ofclaim 15, wherein the comment string is associated with one or morecells of the spreadsheet.
 17. The system of claim 16, wherein thespreadsheet interface reads the one or more cells of the spreadsheet anddetects the command within the comment string.
 18. The system of claim15, wherein the spreadsheet interface is interfaces with one or moreexternal services which are external to the spreadsheet.
 19. A system,comprising: means for detecting a command within a spreadsheet; andmeans for processing the command; wherein the means for detecting thecommand communicates with the means for processing the command when thecommand is detected, and wherein the means for processing processes thecommand independent of operations associated with the spreadsheet. 20.The system of claim 19 further comprising, means for automaticallyupdating a cell of the spreadsheet, wherein the command is associatedwith cell.
 21. The system of claim 20, wherein the command is associatedwith a comment of the cell.
 22. The system of claim 19 furthercomprising, means for interfacing with one or more external servicesthat are external to the spreadsheet.
 23. A machine readable medium forprocessing commands embedded in comments of a spreadsheet havinginstructions thereon, the instructions when executed performing themethod comprising: determining a state change has occurred with a cellof a spreadsheet; parsing a comment field associated with the cell toacquire a command; and processing the command.
 24. The medium of claim23 further comprising instructions for receiving the state change from aservice that is external to the spreadsheet.
 25. The medium of claim 23further comprising instructions for communicating additional commands toone or more services which are external to the spreadsheet in responseto processing the command.
 26. The medium of claim 23 further comprisinginstructions for setting a timer that can trigger additional commands tobe processed in response to processing the command.
 27. The medium ofclaim 23 further comprising instructions for interacting with a graphservice that communicates a state transition for a location of aproduct, and wherein in response to the state transition processing thestate change within the cell of the spreadsheet using operationsassociated with the spreadsheet.